Minutes before their convoy pulled into Camp Anaconda, just north of Baghdad, a rocket-propelled grenade hit another convoy, rolling in front of the group, killing the commander.

When the group left Anaconda for the return trip Wednesday, the first convoy pushing out that day, they drove past a roadside bomb placed just 500 feet from the camp's entrance.

But it, like the others, didn't detonate on them.

In fact, it wasn't until the group made it safely to each checkpoint that they learned exactly how bad their first trip into the war zone since hitting the ground more than a month ago could have been.

"Man, if a (roadside bomb) had gone off," Spc. Jacob Weber said, "there's nothing we could have done."

The group covered about 1,400 miles without incident -- 1,400 miles along a road where American convoys are now attacked dozens of times a day.

That luck -- and that's all it was, the soldiers say -- was all anyone could talk about Thursday as they drove the last six hours from Camp Cedar, near Nasiriya, back to Camp Arifjan, their home base in Kuwait.

The final leg of the trip was uneventful. The only time any of the soldiers fired their weapons was at a weapons-testing range they passed along the way.

"Firing your weapon is important because it gives you confidence in it," said Col. Jeff Miser, the group's commander, as two of the gunners on the gun truck Humvees fired their .50-caliber machine guns.

Even though the last 150 miles before the Kuwait border is relatively safe, it wasn't until the convoy actually crossed into the "green zone" that any of the soldiers felt moved to joke.

"Thank you for riding the Webb express," Webb joked as he pulled his Humvee into the gates of Navistar and removed his bullet-resistant vest. "Please feel free to leave tips in the vehicle as you're exiting."

It was also the first time in days that their adrenaline backed off.

"I have never been more fearful for my life," Spc. Jacob Weber said, recalling a small portion of the trip when the convoy sat dead still for 20 minutes on a road in Baghdad.

"You never know how you will react being fearful for your life," Weber said. "But for me, it made me constantly think about what to do if something happened. It made me more alert and I think if something had happened my training would have kicked in and I would have been able to handle it."

Weber's eyes scanned both highway lanes and the surrounding terrain as he drove from Navistar to Afrijan.

"I guess now that we've done it it's second nature," Weber said.

"This may have been our first time," said Sgt. Brian Melson, who mans one of the .50-caliber machine guns atop a Humvee. "But from now on, every time we roll up there, we have to treat it like the first time, be as aware as we were this time next time."

Melson said he believed the group made it through "because someone was watching over us."

The next time -- and there are bound to many more next times -- might not be as easy. *